This podcast episode ("The Millionaire Myth") — hosted by Kelly Dahmer — argues that team members' perception of an owner's wealth strongly shapes workplace culture in dental practices. Perceived wealth can breed entitlement, resentment, and disengagement; the remedy is not a financial confession but clearer context and shared incentives. The host recommends three interventions: a "line in the sand" conversation to reset expectations, daily reinforcement of vision/purpose/values, and layered bonus systems (monthly individual KPIs tied to collections; quarterly group bonuses tied to profitability). Practical tools include open-book categories (not full P&L sharing), questions to prompt staff thinking, and a downloadable practice-expense benchmark spreadsheet.
Questions this video answers
Became an ESOP (employee stock ownership program) about four years prior (speaker's estimate).
Monthly bonus tied to individual performance metrics (daily KPIs), paid once a minimum collection benchmark is hit each month.
Quarterly group bonus tied to profitability; example suggestion: share ~5% of quarterly profits with the team.
A complimentary practice expense benchmark spreadsheet (practice expense benchmarks for top 10% practices).
Chapters
Okay, another big question for you. What do you think your team members really think about your paycheck? If they think that you're pocketing millions while you're also cutting the cost on their favorite coffee creamer, then you've got a culture problem brewing. Not just a budget problem. But here's the thing. Whether you are a millionaire and you should be, or you just look like one, the perception of your wealth is shaping your practice culture, and it's probably costing you. Welcome back to the Next Level Practice podcast. I'm your host, Kelly Dahmer. Today's episode is a no fluff reality check that we're calling the Millionaire myth. This isn't about how much money you make. It's about how much your team thinks you make and how those assumptions affect morale, productivity, and your bottom line. It's something called perception versus reality. Right? So we're going to unpack how to shift your culture without oversharing and why creating context isn't just defending yourself. It's about how you're leading your team. So on this episode, we're going to be talking about why perception drives behavior more than reality does. How the culture destroying side effects of they're rich, they'll figure it out. Thinking occurs. How to talk about money without actually talking about your money. And real world language for setting expectations that empower instead of alienate your team. Now, listen, I know this from personal experience that your team, this is across the board businesses, small businesses, probably more than larger businesses, but your team thinks that you're making actually more than you really are making. And I know this because maybe four years ago, Next Level practice, we became an ESOP company, which stands for employee Stock option Program. We're employee owned, which has been really, really great. And it also meant that we started to do open book business. Now, I'm not necessarily breaking down every single detail on the P and L with the team, but I do categorize them into bigger buckets and then they see where our money is actually going. And why this is great is because a lot of times teams are aware of top line revenue, but that's not necessarily, doesn't necessarily equate to solvency in a business, which is your bottom line. The profit left over after overhead. Right. So when we did this and we actually started doing open book business, I was not yet CEO and I was like, oh, wow, we actually don't make as much as I thought we did, which was really cool to see, like the reality of what the business was at, how the business was Actually operating. Right. So we want to figure out a way to have your team think like entrepreneurs, understand what's going into the business side of dentistry when it comes to overhead without again, over sharing. So let's get into this. Your perception equals your culture, right? So if your team assumes that you're rich, they're going to act accordingly. And I've seen this as well, right? They demand more while contributing less. Resentment builds up, they question priorities and budget decisions and then they gossip instead of getting clarity. And that is this cascade that just can really ruin and destroy a culture. But here's the key. You're not defending your income and you don't have to defend your income. You, you're just defining the rules of the game for your team. You don't owe your team a financial confession and we would recommend that you do owe them clarity about how a dental business actually works. This is again, how do you get them to think like an entrepreneur without them clearly wanting to be an entrepreneur? Right? Otherwise they would, they would probably own their own business or maybe one day they do. And this is something that, you know, you can help them understand and be more successful in the future on their own. It's a win win either way. Because guess what, this isn't really just a paycheck factory, right? It's a margin sensitive, people powered machine that does require intentional leadership from everyone, not just from you. And I always tell my clients, right, you're not in business to turn a profit. You're there to help your patients. But you do stay in business because you turn a profit. So for those of you who are allergic to your P&Ls and are wanting to keep focus on patient health, this is why this matters. You do need to be paying attention to both. You can't care for your patients if you don't have a business. And, and guess what? The largest item on your P and L is going to be your personnel. So when you explain to your team how a business functions, you're inviting ownership for them. When you don't, they're just filling gas with assumptions. And that's breeding entitlement and disengagement. If it starts with one person, it's going to seep into the rest. And that's something that you really want to prevent and take control of the narrative first. So here's how to reframe that relationship between the team and the business. There's three main things that we recommend to reframe this, this relationship. The first is called the line in the sand conversation. We'll get into that. The second is framing inside of the context of vision, purpose and values of your practice. Again, you're in business or you, you, your intention in business is to care first and foremost for your patients and your team. And then the last is how do you tie daily or monthly or quarterly or annual activities to an incentive system for your team? And that's called, called a bonus system. And we're going to talk about some different ways that you can do that. So first and foremost, line of the sand conversation is the verbal reframing, letting your team know what's going to be different. And it looks something like team. This isn't just my practice. It's where we all spend most of our waking hours, right? And when it thrives, we all benefit, including our patients. If it struggles, we all feel it as well. And I'm not asking you to carry the burden. However, I am inviting you to understand the bigger picture so you can lead to and make decisions for the business that are going to help everyone win in that game. Vision, purpose and values. You want to make sure that you reiterate that because again, that's, that's really why you're here. And you have different Personas among your team and not all of them are going to be like, oh yay, I can't wait to look at the P and ls. Because guess what? You probably aren't saying the same thing either, right? So make sure you review your vision, purpose and values. That's something that it's not just a monthly team meeting, an annual team summit. It's daily in your morning huddle. You're reviewing it and you're celebrating wins and how you were successful in it. And then the big one, the bonus system. So typically, and we always recommend you have a bonus system in place first and foremost that's based on individual performance metrics tied to a daily KPI or key performance indicator that's paid once a minimum collection benchmark is hit monthly. So this is a monthly bonus. It is tied to top line revenue. And that needs to be in place first. That needs to be succeeding first before we would recommend if you're advanced, tying on a bonus bonus system. Okay. And the bonus bonus system would be how we tie the team to profitability. So our advanced practices do this where again, you're not sharing all the details, but you are like, hey, here's our payroll cost, here's our lab costs, here's our, our, our rent, our supplies. So they're seeing the buckets in which that falls into and we recommend you do a quarterly bonus tied to profit and maybe it's 5% of the of the quarterly profits you're sharing with your team. You know, if you've got part time people, full time people, you can distribute that how it's appropriate. So that would be more of like a group bonus. But guess what they're going to be more mindful of. Oh, making sure that I'm not losing my instruments. Or do we really need to over order on supplies? And that's how you get them tied to the solvency of the business. So you do want to make sure that you're equipping them with the proper information for them to win in this. So that does mean that you're sharing the percentage of revenue that goes to payroll, rent, supplies, labs. And we do have a practice expense benchmark spreadsheet that I will link in the show notes. Click the link. It's a complimentary download. And if you're looking to be in the top 10% of practices in the U.S. those are going to be the benchmarks that you want to strive for. And then, you know, you want to show them how. For example, maybe adding one unscheduled patient really creates a ripple effect. Ask them questions like, team, where are we leaving money on the table this week? What's one thing that we could do to run 10% more efficiently? And these aren't just leadership techniques, right? They're culture builders. And culture is what keeps practices profitable and peaceful. Ultimately, the goal is to have them driving the conversations versus it being you, you know, putting the questions on them. We want them to really be saying, hey, how can we become more profitable? Ultimately, that's how you take better care of your patients. But also your team is able to thrive and the practice is thriving. So let's be honest, even if you're doing well financially, you didn't get there without risk, sacrifice and stress. We get it, we get it. Running a small business is really hard, right? You pay the overhead, you took the loans, you feel every refund, every reactivation, every no show, every. And that's not a sob story. It's the entrepreneurial deal. But if your team doesn't understand that, they won't protect what you built. And worse, they'll subconsciously or maybe intentionally sabotage it by draining time, ignoring KPIs or treating your money like it's monopoly cash. And that's why this conversation matters. So if you want to role play this conversation, I'm happy to meet with you. To do so, just click the link below and you can access my schedule. Thank you for joining us on this episode. Episode. We'll see you next time.
